Monday, June 23, 2008

I got promoted and I promised myself and everyone around me that when I got my raise I would buy a new car. Mostly because my car is getting scarier everyday and I commute about 2.5 hours a day.The kind of car I want is a Scion xD[see my SL one above]. I am a total sucker for advertising that is directed to my age group . I see Scion commercials and groan "Ooooooo!!!" Everyone in my apartment building who has a scion loves it(there is an xA, tc and a xB). So I want.Today made my first attempt at contacting Scion dealers. Two of which talked to me for like 40 minutes before finally saying they don't have an xD on the lot and then tried to sell me a Matrix. What. The. Duck. Third time is a a charm, next door to my office they have a black xD on the lot and the saleman is not a total nob. His name is Mike. :)

So far let me explain my Scion experience. Scions are all about customizing. You pick a base vehicle to start with and then you add more and more stuff to it to make it awesome. So on Wednesday I will go see my xD to see if I like how it drives and it's big enough for me, and then I say "Mike I want all this stuff on it," Mike orders the parts, they install the stuff, and about a day or two later my car is all fancy like and I rejoice.

Scion in Second Life also tries to capture this customization experience. You can go over to Scion City, maintained by Millions of Us, and buy a car. Yes I bought the car, it was $L300 and I wanted it. With the car is a notecard that has the URL to download all the PSDs for it. Now I can draw all over my Scion in SL!! Weeeee! Love it. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Scion%20City/60/79/23

The only way this could be better is if the car was free and mod, but I guess Toyota(*cough* Millions of Us) needs my linden , whereas Nissan(Electric Sheep) is one of those open source free love hippi folks. As much as I love Scion because I'm going to own one, Nissan still wins the car brand in SL award.

Scion CityI have been to Scion City a couple times over the last year or so. It used to be one sim made by Neil Protagonist and back in the day it was a really nice urban environment. [See picture to the left of someone's bot spying on me August 2007]

It's 3 sims now, Scion city, Scion city West and Scion City South. To be honest, the new builds are fugly. They use the same TRU textures everyone else uses and don't have any of the finesse that Neil put into his original Scion City build. As I get older in Second Life and more into 3D design, I realize how easy it is to create your own seamless textures for builds. Not only easy, but there are hundreds of high res texture sites out there that have FREE content on them for 3D game developers. FREEEEEEEEE.Here is a professional development company in SL using store bought textures and freebie textures (I saw a Weezer fence ramp there today)! That's not only sad, but shows a lack of innovation or pride in the design. [ Update: Just heard that Millions of Us is not a SL user company, it's a "I don't actually play, but I'd like to make money off of SL" company. ] Neil's stuff was lovely though. He's an artist. :)

Anyway. Scions are neat. I hope to own one by the end of the week. I'll update this if when I see my car in person it turns out to be crummy.

How often have you said to yourself "I wish there was some way I could rez small cats with gyropacks that would follow me about." ? I know me too, so I made this hud that dose just that its copy only and you can find it at my store Chicanery .

HAIR AND GLASSES?!!Browline glasses, for the kids who want to look like Malcolm X. Sculpted prims with shadow-baked textures.

Penny is inspired by some picture I found on flickr for the fronts and Penny from Inspector gadget for the backs. The bandana is sculpted and scripted to change texture. You can sit this one lower on your head, I just like the tiny bangs look for myself.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The difference in color of this ad from my home computer to my work laptop, is ridiculous. O_o I think this is a good case for them to buy me a proper monitor.

Oh wait yeah, product stuff. This is a sculpted bag. It has baked shadows cause I figured out how to do that. It has keys and a USB drive on the keychain. It uh.. has buttons.

There are 7 options for the bag flap design, which you can cycle through when you click on it.

It's NO TRANSFER and NO MOD. BUT- it has resizing scripts, which honestly for tiny people, that's better than giving you mod privileges. The script is smart and will resize the bits that can be resized, where as the already tiny stuff stays tiny.

You can find this at my main store in Koreshan, and my other shops at Harajukubox and the Block.

It's called Mark Up & Style because I got promoted to Senior Experience Designer last week. I modeled it after my bag I use for work, so when I named it, I wanted it to be related to my work. Mark Up & Style Society is a group of developers who meet in Boston for drinking and nerding. I was going to put my badge on there I got last summer, but since it's a logo I didn't know if that was kosher. I couldn' t think of how to make it more developery so I just stuck a USB drive on there. O_o Maybe in the future I'll make a bag that has my work lappy in it and leaves behind a trail of wireframes, comps and code reviews.

>_> This RJD2 song is great. "Have Mercy" remix.Ok yeah I should probably get to wireframing. Boo. Work.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

From all the buying ad space inquires I get, I've come to realize that making magazines in SL is something people really dig doing, much like I really dig making hair. But not everyone can do it because they don't have hosting or the proper technology to make something wicked snazzy.Considering this I bring to you fine folks in the blogosphere:

I found this link today and my coworker and I have been playing with it. It's a free online publishing social network. You upload your pages and it will produce for you a very nice flash magazine that has page turning animations, zooming and a nice little thumbnail menu on the bottom. Again, it's FREE.

So go forth and open up InDesign to get your mag making on! Actually.. this shit doesn't get printed, just use PS. X3

Design Newbies! For the sake of avoiding "Oh god my eyes are bleeding," please educate yourself on Grid systems. [I know that's for webdesign, but it applies to mag layouts too] Contrary to popular belief, making a magazine isn't just "lets throw a bunch of shit on a page;" I mean it could be, but why do that when you could make something lovely?

Have fun peoples! Don't IM me asking if I'd like to buy ad space unless you want cyber kick to the face. :D